A dedicated community quickly formed around the idea, and it fueled Digg’s rise to the top of the burgeoning market of social news sites.

Last night, Digg’s founders learned how strongly their users would protect the control given to them.

The episode started when users began linking to a page containing a code that unlocked copy-protected DVDs. The site’s administrators began taking down the links and suspending the accounts of those who posted them.

Chief Executive Jay Adelson, explaining the site’s rationale, said Digg was simply trying to avoid a lawsuit threatened by the owner of the copyright technology.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the policies of the intellectual property holders and consortiums, in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law,” he wrote.

After pointing out that the site was acting within its “terms of use” policy, Kevin Rose bravely tied the site’s fate to the people who have brought it this far:

After seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.

If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.

Digg on,

Kevin

Victorious, the Digg community appears to have stood down.

Mr. Rose’s post has earned over 11,000 votes so far, and Digg’s front page seems to be returning to its usual mix of technology and random news bits.

Ha. It’s worth pointing out that wired et al have all carried the same key for days — and there’s been no censoring on the part of their administrators. Your article fails to mention that Mr. Rose was sponsored by the key’s backing company (the HD DVD Promotion Group) last year. Fear of a lawsuit?… I wonder.

I realize the Digg has a legal responsibility, but there is a more important principle at work here, and it’s the freedom of information. Personally, if I have to choose between obeying the law and propagating a piece of news, I’ll choose the latter. It’s high time people realized how the internet works. This is not an oldline media company. We are part of a social community where the news is akin to gossip, rather than serious journalism. All information is equal in our judgment. Had the oldline media been more like us, we believe we wouldn’t be in Iraq right now. What we do may be like spreading a rumor but we enjoy it. And what’s more we know we can’t be stopped because you can never, ever squash a meme by brute force on the internetz.

Fake Card Virtual Id - Austrian To quote someone famous, when something is in the internet, you can’t take it out. It’s like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.

Fake Card Virtual Id - Austrian Yes he did die trying to appease a mob. I for one hope that digg users move on to other sites and leave digg an empty shell of what it was. Let’s talk about the real issue here which is the DMCA and copyrights in general. The purpose of a copyright is to enable the creator of a work to profit while speeding the entry of that work into the public domain. (1) This purpose has been perverted by the special interests and the US government to allow corporations to maintain a copyright nearly forever. Nothing created in my lifetime will ever pass into the public domain, so where is my benefit. Things created 40 years before I was born that should already be public domain have been lobbied into not passing into the public domain (Disney anyone). Is it any wonder that people have no respect for copyright when the system is so fundamentally broken?

While the story about digg is interesting, the bigger issue of the DMCA and free speech should be receiving more coverage in the press. Many people take issue with private entities being able to suppress information. This is not the first time that the RIAA or MPAA has tried to suppress information related to copy protection. The use of legal strong arm tatics to prevent the spread of information about how to bypass copy protection schemes has not worked, and is very unlikely to work in the future. People have reasons for wanting to bypass copy protection schemes that have nothing to do with providing copies movies and music to others. It’s amazing that you can publish information on how to build bombs, but you can’t publish the results of your research on how to bypass a copy protection scheme. Security through secrecy will not work for copy protection.

Boy oh boy! Something is happening here that the world has not yet cottoned onto. It is that you Americans are now in a revolutionary mood. It does not have a single focus, such as the anti-Vietnam War movement had, not the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-1960s, but as an old lion and a Canadian who has been involved in lots of stuff all over the world, I am sure I am right. Marche onward, comrades, make this a better world!(Comrade is a good word, let’s reclaim it from the Communists.) You are the ones to do it. You have the get-up-and go spirit that is unique to America! Capitalism does not need to have an ugly face, to be based on greed, to be based on exploitation and thievery. Technology is supposed to make this a better world, not another avenue dividing the world into proles on one side and fat sharks on the other! The motto of technology companies today is not, “how can we make it better for the people,” but “how can we squeeze out more of their money?”

a lot of people in the tech world disagree with the present structure of copyright and patent laws. the supreme court is viewing some of this and seems to be agreeing that they are no longer well suited to the way the world works. some of us even think intellectual property needs to go away as a business model, as all ideas are built on the ideas of others.

No, we think we have a right to information. We also have a right to decide whether or not to use that information. We all — geek or not, Mr. Martino — have a responsibility to our liberties. May you enjoy the fruits of your censorship in this lifetime.

The summary currently says, “Users resisted when the site’s administrators took down a page with code to unlock copyrighted DVDs.” A more accurate summary would replace “copyrighted DVDs” with “copy-protected HD-DVDs.”

This posted code enables software that allows users to circumvent copy protection. Circumventing copy protection to make a backup copy, or to create a movie file for your iPod violates nobody’s copyright. These activities are fair uses that deprive no artists of income, but cracking the disc’s copy protection is a violation of a law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.

The DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent copy protection, and provides no exceptions for fair use. This is why iTunes allows you to import mp3s from your legally acquired CD collection (which has no copy protection), but you can’t import movies from copy-protected, legally acquired DVDs.

The DMCA also makes it illegal to traffic information that would enable users to circumvent copy-protection. The availability of this code on Digg may have exposed them to legal liability. (For what it’s worth, many Digg users noticed that the site has in the past run ads that promote the HD-DVD format.)

Much of the uproar on Digg was over the fact that story submissions and the submitters’ accounts were deleted for the appearance of this code … however, the initial posting of the code was a type of civil disobedience done in reaction to parts of the DMCA that are perceived as being either anti-consumer (lack of fair use exemptions) or draconian (the ability to effectively censor a short code).

I agree – If all we are are hackers and thieves, then why should any young entrepreneur or established business or musician or or songwriter or artist or author ever copyright their works? Don’t sit there and tell me intellectual property means nothing. This economy is based on the power of ideas, and to be paid for the uniqueness of those ideas.

If it’s all about the free I wonder how these people who advocate hacking and stealing will react when something they created gets stolen or copied or hacked into and they aren’t compensated when it spreads throughout the Internet?

As a literary agent charged with protecting my clients’ intellectual property, I alternate between the desire to get my authors out there and the need for them (and me) to make a buck. Even though Disney et al has indeed bought off the copyright system, it is better to try mount a legal challenge and reform the copyright system than to rip off artists’ work without any compensation, in the name of “freedom of information.” Since when is a novel, new song or movie “information”? If the latter contiues unchecked, no creative artist will be able to make a living from his or her work.

The purpose of copyright laws is to ensure that what someone created belongs to them. Intellectual property laws were key for the development of technology that we have today. Take for example Ireland which is attracting more IT industries precisely because they know their creations will not be stolen from them their. property delimitation is a funadmental in encouraging innovation and growth in the economy. You would hate if someone stole your apples and the same goes if they stole your idea about how to make genetically enhanced apples. Give people what is the fruit of their labor and stop believing that you have a right to it.

What if someone published a code to unlock ATM’s and Digg members checking account numbers? To say that this will not negatively affect the livelihoods of the artists who provide the content of those dvd’s is not intellectually honest.

To #7, Al Martino, many people who want to bypass copy protection have no intention of ‘stealing’ others intellectual property. The vast majority of people would not consider bypassing copy protection to copy a song from a CD they purchased to a personal mp3 player theft. That a person would be considered a thief for bypassing copy protection to make a backup copy of a DVD that their children use,and occaisionally abuse, is a perversion of the concept of theft.

DRM has never ever been an effective way to keep media from being pirated. It will NEVER work, it’s fundamentally flawed. As long as legit consumers can decrypt it (to view it), so too, can the pirates. The sooner the MPAA and the RIAA realizes this the better off we will all be.

They should take a page from the TV networks and offer their wares for free on their sites (in some form). At least then they would get web ad revenue. The major TV networks took a hard look at DRM to distribute/protect their shows and abandoned that plan. Instead they went with a model where everyone wins: make the content available to everyone and easy to stream. Now their shows have more viewers with significantly less commercials to sit through.

Also note that Digg was banning users that only questioned the censorship. They didn’t even post the HD-DVD code yet STILL got banned. It’s been known to VERY few users that digg often bans any user that shows public dissent. No one ever noticed because the majority thought it was a lie. Digg was long overdue for this thrashing. Note that in Jay and Kevin’s posts, they still REFUSE to acknowledge that they banned those users. Lying through omission is still lying.

Most people that have pretended to be “experts” on this matter don’t even know this.

Actually ATM “test mode” codes that could be used to hack certain ATM machines WERE published and available online. These were also linked through digg. Fortunately there was no mass hysteri :) suppressing this sort of information does no good whatsoever.

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The Lede is a blog that remixes national and international news stories -- adding information gleaned from the Web or gathered through original reporting -- to supplement articles in The New York Times and draw readers in to the global conversation about the news taking place online.

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Six young Iranians were arrested and forced to repent on state television Tuesday for the grievous offense of proclaiming themselves to be “Happy in Tehran,” in a homemade music video they posted on YouTube.Read more…

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